"The Uses of City Neighborhoods"

This chapter is excerpted from her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In this book she also describes the lively daily ballet of life on Hudson Street where she lived, the significance of public characters, and the informal surveillance networks of “eyes on the street” that helped regulate public security for residents living among urban strangers. She celebrated the messiness and spontaneity of urban street life that was so full of serendipitous encounters. She sought to shift urban planners away from slum clearance toward a more enlightened policy that promoted rather than destroyed neighborhoods.